26th October 2025
Radical Hospitality: Loving our Neighbour when the Flags have Gone Up - One Church's Story
Waiting for a delayed Eurostar train at the end of my holiday in August, I came upon this blog post by Al Barrett, the church leader whose book, "Being Interrupted" I quoted last week. He was writing about his experience of radical hospitality in the course of the protests outside asylum hotels which happened during the summer.
Barrett explains that he had come home from his own off-grid summer holiday, blissfully unaware of the national or international news, and been ambushed by stories of the asylum hotel protests. Not only that, but he quickly became aware that a protest was being planned for an asylum hotel situated in his parish for the following Sunday.
What should the church do? Their vision statement, like ours, speaks of welcoming all, and especially the marginalised and vulnerable. Barrett and his team were horrified at the thought of a protest taking place so close to their church. But as they reflected and prayed together, they also realised that many of the protesters would be their parishioners. Some would be families for whom Barrett had conducted or might be asked to conduct baptisms, weddings and funerals. Some would have children who attended the church school. For the church to stage a liberal counter-protest would simply further polarise the community, and exacerbate existing tensions.
Barrett and the team approached the question in a different way. What are we good at? The answer they swiftly came up with was "hospitality". We're good at parties, and we're good at cake. And, from this, a plan was put in place. The leadership team put out a request for cupcakes, and the congregation responded with enthusiasm. On the day before the protest, Barrett and one colleague went to the asylum hotel bearing cupcakes, flowers and a leaflet offering a safe space inside the church during Sunday with a soup lunch and board games.
On the Sunday, while volunteers from the church cared for the asylum seekers (of different faiths) who took up the church's invitation, Barrett and a few others went to the protest, once again bearing cupcakes, flowers and leaflets about their church's welcome. They circulated in pairs, offering cakes and flowers to anybody who would take them - protesters, passers-by and police, and engaging in conversation but, intentionally, not in argument. They discovered that most of the protesters were not racists, but were deeply distressed and angry... about standards of living, about poor housing, about poverty and lack of opportunity. In this, says Barrett, his team learnt that there was much common ground.
Yesterday, we welcomed Zara Rawlinson, the Racial Justice Officer for the Diocese, to speak at our evening Communion service. She echoed Barrett's experience. There are very few haters, she said, but they are well organised. We are more than them and we too need to organise - to listen and show empathy, to seek to understand, to bring people together.
In itself, Barrett recognises, their cupcake and flowers counter-protest was a tiny thing. It didn't solve the problems at a local level, let alone at the level of wider society. But it remained a sign, a sign of hope, love and radical hospitality, a reminder that hate does not have to have the last word. And of course, in God's topsy turvy kingdom, where the last are first and the first are last, a mustard seed of faith and hope is all that we need...
